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John Garred is Vegreville’s new Centenarian
John Garred is Vegreville’s new Centenarian
Rosanne Fortier News Correspondent
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John Garred was born in Edmonton on January 21, 1921, to William and Amelia Garred of Andrew, Alberta where he lived on the family farm 12 miles northwest of Andrew (very close to the Pakan Crossing) with his parents and older brother Laverne.
John was schooled at Pakan School. “When I was young, I lived by the river and I remember having to cross the river every day to go to school. Then on the weekends, a whole bunch of us kids used to go up on top of a hill and sled all the way back down. I had a lot of friends growing up.
I enjoyed school because I liked to learn. After he finished school he worked on the family farm.
He knew his future wife, Jeannie Hrehorets, all his life as she was one of their neighbours. He said when they got a bit older they got together and started dating because he liked her and found her to be really pretty and nice.
At age 21, he married Jeannie and together they raised nine children where they farmed the home place until 1975 when they purchased a house in Vegreville. “My marriage to Jeannie was good; we stayed together for 45 years. The advice I would give young people who plan to get married is to make the right choice and try to find someone who agrees with you on a lot of things. I chose a good person. Jeannie was a really good cook too.” John said. “I also found parenthood to be a lot of fun. I played ball a lot with my kids.”
John admitted years ago, people experienced many hard times. “You had to work for every penny you got and you had to save what you could. People didn’t have money like they do nowadays. But this didn’t bother me, we lived with the times and things got better.”
